A newspaper is the center of a community, it's one of the tent poles of the community, and that's not going to be replaced by Web sites and blogs.

Everybody counts or nobody counts

I'm always looking at ways of shaking up the writing experience because I think it helps.

In a daydream sort of way, I think it would be pretty cool to direct a movie. But I have been on movie and TV sets and know it is hard work. I like directing it in my mind. It is easier.

I went into journalism to learn the craft of writing and to get close to the world I wanted to write about - police and criminals, the criminal justice system.

The built-in form is a window frame. You can use this genre [crime fiction] to go where you want to go, and explore what you want to explore. In some ways it gives you a lot of freedom because you have a framework readers are looking for.

You can't patch a wounded soul with a Band-Aid.